Ex-coach tips Wallabies

Former Australian coach Rod Macqueen believes the Wallabies are on track to defend their World Cup title, but backs the consensus that England presents the greatest challenge.

Macqueen also said he believed the vagaries of the tackle law interpretation could work in Australia's favour at the October-November tournament, with referees possibly influenced by a vocal home crowd.

Speaking in Cape Town ahead of the opening Tri Nations match between Australia and South Africa (played at Newlands overnight, Melbourne time), Macqueen gave the Wallabies his vote of confidence.

He said England was impressive in last month's 25-14 win over Australia, and didn't have an obvious weakness.

The only Achilles heel could be that many of the England players are heading into their mid-30s.

"Are there too many players that are toward the end of their career? Because sometimes you might be just that little bit too late," Macqueen said.

"If you look at their team, they're relying on a lot of experienced players at the moment and it's going to go down very close to the wire."

He said Australia's loss would prove more beneficial than a win, and compared it with the build-up to the 1999 World Cup, when the Wallabies had mixed Tri Nations results, losing to the Springboks in Cape Town and the All Blacks in Auckland.

"The best thing that we had leading into the World Cup was the losses that we had because you learn so much from those losses, and I think without those, we would never have been as successful as we were," Macqueen said.

"I think the loss against England was very good for them (the Wallabies).

"From what I see from the outside, the team's on track because they're learning, they're building themselves up and I think for that reason Australia's got a good chance."

Current Wallabies coach Eddie Jones last week continued his push for the tackle to be refereed "to the letter of the law".

But Macqueen said the breakdown rulings were so complicated, referees could rule either way and therefore left themselves open to be influenced by spectators.

"The referee's got so many decisions to make at that breakdown, he's going to be influenced by the way the crowd reacts, so potentially many of those decisions could go the way of the local crowd."

Macqueen's solution was to strip back the breakdown law and start from scratch.

"I think we've got to start again. We've got so many laws there at the moment that we really do need to look at the whole thing, not make any knee-jerk decisions, but make some decisions that are going to bring the game into the modern era."